Modern Slavery: A Curse to Humanity

Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibility to Reduce Slavery.

This essay discusses the issue of slavery present in the operation of global economy. After various struggles and conflicts the concept of slavery had been abolished but after globalization, when the economy of the world experienced a boom in the global business, this problem of slavery retuned again.it is a curse to humanity where the owners of the slaves exploit them in order to get profit by supplying them as cheap labors in the manufacturing industries. These slaves however do not have any rights as human and accepted to be subhuman who work without any payment. There are various reasons of introduction of slavery in the economy of the country but the basic reasons are poverty and inequality in the society. It can be said that this practice of slavery is a negative byproduct of globalization because the demand of product and services by the incasing global customers have fueled the business organizations to increase production in any means. Moreover, the desire to limit the labor cost is another reason that instigate the modern business organization to take unethical measures to earn more profit. However, the companies’ corporate social responsibilities are the most important ways that help these exploited people to be free from bondage.

Slavery is a curse to humanity hence all business must take responsibilities to abolish it.

Slavery is not a new word to mankind but in this 21^st century it is a chilling fact to know that there are huge number of slaves ranging from21 million to 46 million in this civilized world. The terms modern slavery is an umbrella term used to denote human trafficking, force marriage, bonded labor, child labor and decent based slavery. It is the act of recruiting, transporting and both providing and obtaining an individual for compelled labor through threat and force. As the researchers have pointed out that when a person is under control of domination of someone, it needs oppression and force to control them and the goal remains to exploit them. The survey buy Global Slavery Index has revealed the fact that there are more than 48.5 million slaves working around the world and among these people, 58% slaves are from developing countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Uzbekistan (Anti-Slavery International.org 2018). The more problematic of this data is that more than 10 million among these saves are children. This data warns that slavery has become a social curse which need to be abolished for the second time and take initiatives so that this malpractice does not crawl up in the human society again as this is a shame to human civilization.

Challenges in Eradicating Modern Slavery

Milivojevic, Pickering and Segrave (2017) have stated that despite the fact that the modern slaver or involuntary servitude is an illegal practice which affect the human society and humanity greatly, remain hidden from the public as well as the authorities in most of the cases. Some of the critic blame globalization to be the originating factor of modern slavery. However, globalization is not a potent excuse to avoid responsibilities for eliminating modern slavery form the supply chain. Slaves trading which to be a lucrative business for the slave owners, has not lost its attraction. It is one of the most attractive investment become the owners of saves need to pay only the substance to these slaves. These cost are however this sustenance is however much low from the free labors available in the market. Therefore, it can be understood that these slaves originate from the business operation in the world. It is true that due to globalization scope of business, transportation and communication has increased but globalization is the root cause for increasing slave trade in the third world countries. Modern slavery opposes the ethics and morality of the modern firms. This is because these slaves ate controlled by their owners both physically and mentally. These owners own them through punitive measures where they are threatened to be harmed if do not abide by the instructions of the owners or try to leave the originations. Now the cause of this threat has been originated from huge recruitment debts that these slaves can never pay back. It is true that globalization has unmoved the way of transportation and this is the opportunities grabbed by these slave traders. Under the guide of employment in the companies located in different countries, these owners have been running their business of slaves. As mentioned before, the idea of human trafficking is a part of modern slavery where these victims are influenced to have a better life in the foreign countries which ultimately turns into a bitter reality. In this apart the children are the first priority of these slave traders as they cost less in sustenance and has no demand.

The developing countries Rae the base of such practices, where the labor cost is much lowers that the developed countries. Therefore, most of the manufacturing industries located in Europe and America, greatly depend on their supply chain in order to reduce their expenses in manufacturing their products. These countries have weaker economy which contribute in the growing inequalities. However, these countries are also members of the United Nations hence prohibit the action of slavery but the feature of slavery has helped these malicious slave owners to keep their business masked. These risks of slavery associated with supply chain of the manufactures can affect the reputation and legality of their business. Therefore, if the business leaders think that they do not have much power to fight against slavery, then there are excusing bad indirectly support this illegal action. The Unite Nations Guiding Principles on business and Human Rights, have recognized that it is the responsibilities of the business leaders to recognize the importance of abolition the malpractice of slavery and identify if there is any case of slavery in their organizations as well as in the supply chain. They need to respect and ensure the human rights criteria maintained in their organizations.

Responsibilities of Global Businesses

It is an impossible idea that the managers and leaders will be able to understand all the problems and can take immediate initiatives to manage those issues. However, there are scopes to help these slave people and this power to help is only possess by these global business leaders. First of all, they need to initiate the action with whatever power they possess and commit to use them at their best to abolish such practice. For doing this, these global biasness leaders need to endure transparency in the supply chain. This will not only help in the proper identification of potential risks of human rights abuse but aloe help to understand the reasons of these risks exist in the supply chains. Despite the fact that recondition of modern forms of slavery is very difficult to detect, it has a criminal nature. Hence the business need to tackle this type of human rights abuse through effective diligence as well as risk management. Therefore, it can be said that by acting in a social responsible way, the businesses can not only limit this illegal act of slavery but will be able to abolish them completely.

The business leaders in the big firms have some corporate social responsibilities which they follow to have a sustainable growth. It mainly has a four facet structure which emphasis in bringing balance and positive outcome through business. The business CSR focuses on the economic, legal, ethical a philanthropic responsibilities performed by the business organization. Therefore, in the initiative to reduce the incidents of slavery in the economy and society, the business has a clear part to play (LeBaron, Lister and Dauvergne 2017). In opposing this view, some of the critics have argued that the business leaders do not have any responsibility in this context. The CSR activities of a firm though focus on the aims to ensure that companies conduct their business in a way that is ethical. This means taking account of their social, economic and environmental impact.

Therefore, the cosines do not have any responsibilities to reduce slavery in theory supply chains if the country does not have any regulation associated with slavery (Nolan and Bott 2018). To these critics, globalization is the chief driving force of revitalizing slavery in the world. Globalization has been credited with most of the recent scientific as well as economic advancements in the world. It has made things available, be it essential machinery or designer garments, the people of this generation has been having anything at any place. In this situation most of the manufactured objects come from faraway places her these companies depend on the supply chain in manufacturing their materials then export the ready objects to wherever the company wants to sell. Therefore, it is impossible for the companies to monitor all the functionalities of its supply chain like whom they are employing to work. As in many cases the distance of the parent coalmines and their subsidiaries are huge hence the company have no proper information about the actions of the supply chain management.

Role of Governments in Controlling Corruption and Poverty

These critics have also blamed the administrative structure of the country where the government has limited power to control over this type of corruption in the society. There is an ample scope for the governments to focus on such crisis, then introduce new policies and laws to prevent such illegal actions (Birkey et al. 2015). To this critics, there are number of occupations that support the act of slavery for which the employers are not responsible the effect of war and other political issues give birth of unemployment hence the supply chain of the country uses these poor people in their originations. This serve their interest also as these people get help to sustain.

According to this view, the social inequity from the aspect of economy, lead to poverty which serves as opportunities for the employers to supply cheap labor for the business organizations (Giannakis and Papadopoulos 2016). These global business organizations do not have any responsibilities regarding the sustenance of these bonded labors because these companies depend on their supply chain for labors and provide them the amount of money as labor cost. Now, the supply chain may or may not give their employees’ wages. Thus these owners can make them slaves or bonded labor.

To these critics, the government of the counties are actual responsible people for supporting this malpractice indirectly (Gold, S., Trautrims and Trodd 2015). The governments need to be credited with the strongest response to modern slavery but they avoid their duty by doing little to handle the victims of modern slavery in a way that encourage the slave owners to continue their business. The expected transparency in the system which helps the law enforcement agencies to crackdown money laundering agencies associated with contemporary slavery, is not present at all. Therefore, the aspects of human rights prescribed the UN, cannot be maintained properly in the country (Mota et al. 2015). Therefore, the global business is free from any type of responsibilities regarding modern slavery and they cannot do anything even if want to change the situation, due to globalization.

The view with which these critics judge the issue of modern slavery, is not completely appropriate. It cannot be denied that due to globalization the number of factories in the world has increased the demand of the customer and variety of products have also been increased. Due to this reason, the demand for skilled as well as averagely skilled labors have recorded a high demand by the manufacturers (Barna 2018). This can be the reason for rejuvenation of this concept of slavery. There are numerous cases as well as evidences have published in the developing countries where the accommodation of the cheap labors has been found which are mostly industry dominated. These evidences clearly show that the modern day industries are in need of labors extensively. Despite these facts the concept and practice of slavery cannot be supported from any context.

Moreover, it needs to be kept in mind that the business organizations work with the supply aching need to be bothered by the operations of these supply chain. This is because what these organizations do regarding their employees are directly related with the business. This is the reason, why the consumer awareness is being increased. The people have started to boycott these products, which companies use unethical methods in their manufacturing. It can be the issues of child labor or the bonded labor (Beske and Seuring 2014). It can the therefore, stated that in the name of globalization, what these companies are doing are just inexcusable. There is no scope for argument that the companies operating in the foreign countries mainly for manufacturing their goods, need to have proper knowledge and need to monitor the functions of their supply chain. The mangers are turning a corporate blind eye on the modern slavery, including in the extended supply chain has been effectively supporting this type of business. The complexity in the supply chain and the agreement process with the labors are not in the field of direct function of the business organization but the silencing process have been increasing the complexity of the situation. In this context the company’s CSR responsibilities can be named (Jacobs, Chase and Lummus 2014). The CSR of the business organizations support the idea of securing the human rights of the employees therefore, the organizations need to release the position of the employees or these labors in their supply chain and directly in their one business hence need to follow some very important measures.

No business must be seeking only commercial advantages based on just ensuring that their workers or the laborers in the supply chain have been treated as only human beings. It must be the corporate starting point for all (Schaltegge and Burritt 2014). However, in absence of this here are considerable amount of risks which reveals that those who understand the commercial advantage as an ethical reputation can be potentially tempted for covering up the information about the abuses in their supply chain rather than confronting as well as rectifying these abuses (Martin, Smith and Smith 2017). However, businesses must be prepared to recognize when these problems are beyond their powers, they need to speak publicly about these. In this context the evidence can be sited where the critics say that the child labor is so endemic in West African agricultural sector because this is a part of economy as well as society because of the fact that there are very few schools in the locality and these schools are of very poor quality. Therefore, the government as well as the local business of the region need to come together in order to help these children. Again this is not a matter that governments can rectify alone.

There is no doubt that modern slavery has become the agenda of the political as well as economic agenda for defaming the global business organizations (Ma, Lee and Goerlitz 2016). Politicians incline to pay more importance to the business leaders who share their profits with the government rather than focusing on the non-profit organizations who work hard to eliminate these practices from the business supply chain. The business leaders are not shy about speaking on a range of what might be called traditional business- political matters, such as tax or trade policy. With the globalization of international political and social economy it is significant to recognize that the issue of human rights as well as development policy have commercial along with legal implications for the most profitable businesses (Crane et al. 2017). The international businesses need to commit to do their best in eliminating such malpractices the society. They must do what is within their power for successfully ending slavery in the supply chains, and occasionally the most imperative power which they must exercise in demanding fitting actions from bother the regional as well as national governments.

The companies therefore are not the sole responsible institutions to maintain as support slavery in their supply chain but they need to be aware as this issue of slavery has become the most affecting factor of their reputation as well as their business. Despite the fact these factors have not yet successfully harmed the business often of the organizations but the ethics that the organizations commit to their stakeholders as well as their customers need to be maintained (Phillips 2015). It is in the corporate social responsibilities of these firms which direct them to become more worried with the increasing problems of slavery in their operations. It is the negative aspect that darken their production as well as services. However, the situation has started to be changed. The awareness among the slavery is increasing and the laws have been started to be stricter. Based on this idea, the international business organizations have started to examine the actions of their supply chain along with functions of their foreign subsidiaries which are mainly located in the developing countries or in the other foreign region (McGregor and Smit 2017). These companies which operate in the domestic or international levels, address these kinds of social issues under the concept of Corporate Social Responsibilities. Their ultimate goals are to end this process in their successful operations.

Therefore, it can be said that the issue of slavery is a human institution. This can only be changed by the human actions. The greatest strides against this institution of slavery in the course of the human history has occurred when the businesses joined with the governments, employee unions. Moreover, the civil society also need to reject this form of violence against the vulnerable human beings. The most impotent fact is that slavery is all against humanity and is a threat to humanity.

References:

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